The Dutch have Lima in their sights

May 24 ^th 2018 - 16:51

Yesterday, the organisers kicked off the Dakar Tour with a visit to the Netherlands, which will be the third largest country in terms of participants in the 2019 Dakar. Stage winners like Tom van Genugten in the truck class or top drivers such as Bernhard Ten Brinke in the car category are already looking forward to heading to Peru.

It was looking a lot like Peru yesterday afternoon in Loon Op Zand, not far from Rotterdam, where the Dutch rally-raid community gathered. The gathering gave competitors an opportunity to look back at their fondest memories from this past January, beginning with the most successful in the Dutch clan, Ton van Genugten, winner of four stages on the way to Córdoba and 8th place in the general classification. But the pride of the nation throughout the 2018 Dakar was Bernhard Ten Brinke, who fought for a place on the podium just until he retired on the penultimate day of the rally. Attracted by the sound of F1 engines in Monaco, the Toyota driver made his intentions known for the 2019 Dakar by long distance, where he could count among his adversaries one of his compatriots, Erik van Loon, whose return to the rally is seriously being considered. He is encouraged by the idea of an all Peru Dakar, as are most of the competitors, who wanted details about what they should expect. In all, the 10 days of competition conceived around a sand theme (70% of the special stages) with a progressive increase in difficulty is what the competitors wanted to hear and encourages for example the De Groot Team to enter a truck after a year’s absence. Coming from neighbouring Belgium, the preparers from VDR Truck Racing have also taken an option on some race numbers to stick on trucks that Ford Trucks plans to enter.

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Two Dakar Series in South America in 2018
The training and racing programme in preparation for the 2019 Dakar is now among the preoccupations of the competitors who will be at the start in Lima on January 6, 2019. The South American raiders will have two opportunities to measure themselves in the Dakar Series events late this summer. In Argentina, entries are already being accepted for the Desafío Ruta 40 that will be contested from August 25-31. In the aftermath of this rally, competitors will have a unique chance to test their skills in the Peruvian sand, where reconnaissance is now prohibited, with the return to the calendar of the Desafío Inca, which will be a three-day rally from September 13-16.

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